J Emerg Med
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Emergency department (ED) boarding of psychiatric patients is a national issue that continues to worsen at a disturbing rate. Implementing strategies in the ED to provide continuous care for patients can help secure patient safety. ⋯ Patients with psychiatric disorders boarding in the ED need careful consideration of management plans to mitigate patient safety events.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Effect of the Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks (MISSION) Act Scribes Trial on Emergency Department Provider Productivity and Patient Throughput Times.
To help improve access to care, section 507 of the VA MISSION (Maintaining Internal Systems and Strengthening Integrated Outside Networks) Act of 2018 mandated a 2-year trial of medical scribes in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). ⋯ Scribes were associated with decreased provider productivity and increased patient throughput time in VHA EDs. Although scribes may have contributed to improvements in other dimensions of quality, further examination of the ways in which scribes were used is advisable before widespread adoption in VHA EDs.
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Despite improvements over the past decade, children continue to experience significant pain and distress surrounding invasive procedures in the emergency department (ED). To assess the impact of newly developed interventions, we must create more reliable and valid behavioral assessment tools that have been validated for the unique settings of pediatric EDs. ⋯ We developed a psychometrically sound tool tailored for pediatric ED procedures. Future work could use this measure to better identify behavioral targets and test the effects of interventions to relieve pediatric ED pain and distress.
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Emergency physicians and trainees provide the initial care for critically ill patients. In times of emergency department boarding, this care may extend beyond the first few hours. To meet the needs of this population, a standardized novel critical care curriculum targeting third- and fourth-year medical students was developed. ⋯ The novel curriculum was found to be effective during its implementation in third- and fourth-year medical students. As such, it indicated that a critical care fundamentals course improves confidence in these topics for students with and without prior experience. Further work is necessary to understand the generalizability and knowledge retention of the proposed pilot curriculum.
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Vasopressor medications raise blood pressure through vasoconstriction and are essential in reversing the hypotension seen in many critically ill patients. Previously, vasopressor administration was largely limited to continuous infusions through central venous access. ⋯ Across the categories of shock states, norepinephrine has wide applicability and is a reasonable first-line agent for shock of uncertain etiology. Keeping a broad differential when hypotension is refractory to vasopressors may help to identify adjunctive treatments in physiologic states that impair vasopressor effectiveness. Peripheral administration of vasopressors is safe and facilitates early administration, which may help to improve outcomes in some shock states.